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Google ending its China search
partnerships
FALLOUT: Google searches were erratic yesterday in China,
while an editorial in the ¡¥People¡¦s Daily¡¦ blasted the company and accused it of
colluding with US spies
AP AND REUTERS , BEIJING AND HONG KONG
Thursday, Mar 25, 2010, Page 1
Google is still censoring search content for some of its customers in China, a
company spokeswoman said yesterday, in a decision that underscores the Internet
giant¡¦s delicate effort to hold on to its Chinese businesses days after moving
its search engine offshore.
The decision to provide censored searches was made to honor contracts with
current business partners and Google will continue to meet those commitments,
said Jessica Powell, the firm¡¦s Tokyo-based spokeswoman.
She said that all censoring done by Google in China would be phased out over a
time period she would not specify.
¡§If there are cases where we were providing a censored search and were
contractually required to provide censored search, then we will honor those
requirements,¡¨ Powell said.
In a separate e-mail she said that over time Google would ¡§not be offering
syndicated censored search to any partners in China.¡¨
She declined to name the customers, but Li Zhi, an analyst for Analysys
International, a Beijing research firm, said Google was likely referring to
search services on sites such as Sina, China¡¦s most popular portal, and
Tianya.com, a popular forum site.
Tianya.cn announced late yesterday that it would take over operation of two
services developed and formerly operated with Google.
It wasn¡¦t immediately clear what prompted Tianya.cn¡¦s decision to take over the
two sites.
One analyst said the portal may have come under pressure to distance itself from
Google or perhaps it was a sign that Google itself had decided to break more of
its ties to China.
Google¡¦s search services remained erratic across Beijing yesterday, frustrating
users unsure about the future of its other services ¡X from maps to music.
Many of Google¡¦s often well-educated, professional fan-base in China, who use
its software for both work and play, said they were already suffering some
fallout yesterday with erratic service.
Several of Google¡¦s international search sites were failing to open, and when
they could be accessed some users found that all searches, including for
non-sensitive terms like ¡§hello,¡¨ were returning blank pages or error messages.
Businesses, university students and people in private homes reported
intermittent problems on the main Google.com site, the Google.co.uk site and
Google.ca.
¡§Google.com.hk is not currently being blocked, although it seems that some
sensitive terms are. However, if you search for a sensitive term and trigger a
government blockage, that may affect subsequent searches ... for a short
period,¡¨ Google said.
The People¡¦s Daily yesterday accused the company of colluding with US spies, in
China¡¦s latest blast at the company.
¡§Google is not a virgin when it comes to values. Its cooperation and collusion
with the US intelligence and security agencies is well-known,¡¨ a front-page
commentary in the overseas edition of the paper said.
¡§All this makes one wonder. Thinking about the United States¡¦ big efforts in
recent years to engage in Internet war, perhaps this could be an exploratory
pre-dawn battle,¡¨ it said.
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